Antici……pation

When you book a wedding photographer, it’s important that you know how long you’re going to be waiting to see your pictures. And exactly when you should be expecting to see prints, albums, or whatever else you’ve paid cold hard cash for. For instance, if you’re expecting to see proofs when you get back from honeymoon two weeks after the wedding, but your photographer isn’t intending to show you them for a month…Not good. Your final wedding experience shouldn’t be ruined because of an unprofessional attitude to customer service and communication.

It may well take several weeks to prepare your images or products (I’ll talk about what’s involved in post-processing in a future post), but make sure you know what your photographer has in mind. He or she will have a pretty standard workflow, and will be able to set your expectations from the word go.

For my own weddings, I aim to blog my favourite half-dozen or so images within two weeks of the wedding date. It gives the bride and groom (and their families and friends) something to whet their appetite. The next thing they’ll see is their full album design, within five weeks of the wedding date. Once they’ve chosen their album spreads, the albums typically take a further eight weeks to print, bind and arrive from the US, by which point I’ll have received any framed prints or canvases as well, and can deliver everything they’ve ordered.

I think it’s actually quite nice to have a couple of months between the wedding day and receiving your album. It builds anticipation and makes that first viewing all the more emotional. Just don’t let your mum cry all over your nice new album!